Man dies in car tyre changing accident

[Rhythm Thief]

That doesn't make it right - still making assumptions just as wild, the killer driver would have had to be driving on the hard shoulder to hit someone changing a tyre.

Not necessarily. I very nearly ran over someone's legs on the M5 once, as they were lying under their van with them poking out over the rumble strip into lane 1. And I think you underestimate just how little room there is between the hard shoulder and the wheeltracks. You wouldn't have to deviate far from them to hit someone hunched over a wheel, and you wouldn't have to hit them full on in order to kill them.

Besides, what assumptions did I make?

 

[Amanda P]

For what it's worth, chaps, the BBC piece seems to have been edited to remove references to "accidents". It now refers to "being struck" and "the collision". Another small victory for BM.

 

[BentMikey]

It depends on the hard shoulder, not all are so narrow.

How would you feel about your own driving where you to touch the rumble strip, or even to cross it?

 

[BentMikey]

For what it's worth, chaps, the BBC piece seems to have been edited to remove references to "accidents". It now refers to "being struck" and "the collision". Another small victory for BM.

Woohoo! Let's keep it up, if there's a group of us making comments to the BBC maybe that will cause a sea change in their journalism.

p.s. I'm not suggesting it's a good idea to change your tyre on the motorway, btw, but I'm also rather scathing of drivers crossing the rumble strip.

 

[BentMikey]

If you think the driving was OK, let's go out on a similar road and video you driving your company lorry across the nearside rumble strip as we go past a broken down vehicle. Then we can email your employers and we can see what they think. Good driver, yes? Any other answer and you're victim blaming.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

If you think the driving was OK, let's go out on a similar road and video you driving your company lorry across the nearside rumble strip as we go past a broken down vehicle. Then we can email your employers and we can see what they think. Good driver, yes? Any other answer and you're victim blaming.

Oh, FFS, not that "victim blaming" phrase again. Look, doing any work on your car on the hard shoulder is a bloody silly thing to do, never mind squatting down two feet from the nearside tyre track with lorries zipping past. In this case, the victim has to bear some of the blame. Besides, you don't know that anyone crossed the rumble strip to hit him - as I said earlier in the thread, I saw someone working on their car with their legs out in the carriageway once. And anyway, even if someone did cross the rumble strip - well, it happens. The hard shoulder is not a safe environment and the best thing anyone can do is get away from it as soon as they can. Not arse about changing tyres as if they're on the drive at home.

 

[BentMikey]

I noticed you avoided answering the question.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

What question? "Good driver, yes?"? Well, I think you can be a good driver and still stray onto the hard shoulder on occasion, yes. That's exactly why the hard shoulder is deemed a dangerous environment and exactly why it's really not a good idea to start messing around with your car there.

 

[GrasB]

I'm with RT on this one, it may not have been the drivers fault as we have no real information on what happened. Some possible scenarios are:

Lorry driver was driving along, couldn't move towards the offside due to an overtaking vehicle being close to the near side of their lane & the man over balanced by the lorries wake was crushed by the following trailer.

A gust of wind caught the lorry & blew it towards the man changing the tyre & the lorry hit the motorist.

The driver changing the wheel wasn't thinking & simply stepped into the path of the lorry.

The lorry was on a tightish bend & while the driver was using all of the lane the trailer still wasn't far enough away from the hard shoulder so clipped the motorist & sent hum flying thus killing him.

I could go on. The point is that generally things like this aren't black & white, often there's layers of contributory factors that are placed on top of each other to cause an incident like this.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

^^ Exactly.

 

[BentMikey]

To create some balance, how about some scenarios where the lorry driver is to blame? We are all making nothing more than wild assumptions after all.

I'm not surprised by RT and Lee. Lee particularly seems to believe an HGV driver can almost never be at fault. Bit like some on here always defending the cyclist.

 

[Brains]

I very nearly caused a similar "accident" about 20 years ago in Germany.

Driving at very late at night down the autobahn in an English van (so right hand drive) at top speed, which being English was only 63mph

The Autobahn was unlit and empty, when in the near distance I thought I spotted a single flash of a cycle rear light, surley not, this is a German Autobahn, however I was on my guard and took my foot off the accelerator, another flash, very close, I pulled very sharply into the middle lane, and passed a American soldier standing in the middle of the slow lane waving a flashing bike light ! I passed so close (me being on the 'wrong side') that I saw him move his arm in so the wing mirror missed him, just. I also read his name tag in the dark (I was very close) . Pvt. Schmidt

Up ahead was an on ramp, and there trundling down at 40mph was a long convoy of US Army lorries.

I drove the jeep at the front of the convoy, wound down the window, and as I was on the same side as the driver I pulled up very close and told him what I thought of their "traffic management". He was somewhat suprised that I knew the name of the solder, that I was speaking English on a German Autobahn and that he was the driver addressing the driver, all at 40mph.

To this day I doubt Pvt. Schmidt has any idea how lucky he is to be alive.

Had I hit him that would have been an accident on my behalf and I'm not sure what you would call the actions of the US military, "crass stupidity" would make stupid people look clever

 

[GrasB]

BM, I think you've been doing that well enough all on your own. I was balancing your "it must be the driver" attitude. I think you need to realise that sometimes it's not one persons fault just a set of bad/questionable decisions & adverse circumstances come together to make a tragedy. The biggest mistake imo in the first place was the driver attempting to do a road side repair on a hard shoulder.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

To create some balance, how about some scenarios where the lorry driver is to blame? We are all making nothing more than wild assumptions after all.

I'm not surprised by RT and Lee. Lee particularly seems to believe an HGV driver can almost never be at fault. Bit like some on here always defending the cyclist.

To be fair, there's nothing in the original article which indicates that a lorry wass involved at all. But I can hardly avoid writing about this from the perspective of a lorry driver, since that's what I am. I'm not trying to say that lorry drivers are never at fault - and neither is Lee, from what I've read - rather that the margin for error, when you're doing repairs on the hard shoulder, is rather narrower than I would be comfortable with. Even without someone riding the rumble strip.

 

[Rhythm Thief]

BM, I think you've been doing that well enough all on your own. I was balancing your "it must be the driver" attitude. I think you need to realise that sometimes it's not one persons fault just a set of bad/questionable decisions & adverse circumstances come together to make a tragedy. The biggest mistake imo in the first place was the driver attempting to do a road side repair on a hard shoulder.

Yes, I was trying to provide a balance to the rather hysterical tone of the OP, not trying to exonerate every driver everywhere of all blame for anything ever.